


alleluia, I wanna take you for all that you got

by orphan_account



Series: we're on a quick, sick rampage [12]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bittybones (Undertale), Bitties as Pets, Bitty Death, Emotional Hurt, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 20:00:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19363309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: You'd pushed down your rising feelings of anger and frustration for months, but Cherry's attempt to "help" you was the last straw. At this point, it was your sanity on the line.





	alleluia, I wanna take you for all that you got

**Author's Note:**

> I realized I hadn't written about a Cherry yet... so here we are.

“Finally done,” you exhaled, closing your laptop and rising from your chair for the first time in hours. You felt prepared and competent for your meeting tomorrow, and you’d picked up your book of exhibits from the printer’s earlier that day, so you could refer to that information and show your colleagues the documents on demand. Your job was demanding and often stressful, but you were ambitious and wanted to provide for your aging parents and any future family members you might obtain in the course of life, so it was worth it. 

You placed your exhibit book next to your purse, and exited your home office, already thinking about what you’d watch on television that night. You were arrested in your progress by the rattle of wire bars and a shriek of “Momma!” A deep sigh escaped your lips, and you did your best to school your features into a smile before turning your head. You’d almost forgotten about him, for a while. Your Runt bittybones, uncreatively named “Cherry” (the most common nickname for his type), was pressed up against the side of his cage, face flushed as always, and smiling shyly at you. He’d been in there for the hours you’d been working, and even though you’d really thought you explained to him why you had to leave him alone temporarily, you could see the tracks of red-tinted tears on his bony cheeks.

Summoning your self-restraint again, you prevented your eyes from rolling. You had had Cherry for almost a year now, and it had been… a slog, to say the least. When you’d seen him alone in his cage at the adoption center, crying and blubbering about how no one would ever want him, your heart had clenched and you’d handed over the adoption fee before you could really think it through. He’d been boxed up so quickly you almost couldn’t blink, and you found yourself driving home with a sobbing cardboard bitty carrier in the passenger seat. You’d paid for your impulsive decision in full, though—Cherry was, without a doubt, the most troublesome and irritating pet you could imagine having. You’d thought he would stop crying once he realized he HAD been adopted into a home, but that hadn’t been the case; instead, the bitty cried multiple times a day, about just about everything. If he spilled water on his shirt, there were tears. If he stuttered too much before getting the words out, he broke into a sobbing fit. If you ever corrected him, in any way, shape, or form, he was inconsolable for hours. 

You were not the kind of person who believed in rehoming pets. You believed that when you made a commitment to a living thing to care for it, you should follow through. You’d done your absolute best to adjust how you dealt with Cherry in a way that minimized the anxious breakdowns. You had even gotten over your visceral disgust at his heats, doing your best not to look at him while he used his toys and to tune out his begging for “Momma” to fuck him harder, deeper, faster; you’d learned to clean up immediately afterward and then act like it never happened. All in all, Cherry was not a fun pet to have. He didn’t really provide the companionship you’d wanted out of a bitty—instead, you were his caretaker for every second you interacted with him, and it was YOUR job to provide support and comfort to HIM, not the other way around. He insisted repeatedly, ad nauseam, that he loved you, but for the last ten months you hadn’t exactly been feeling the love.

Now, looking at his watery eyes and his skeletal hands wrapped around the bars of his cage, you steeled yourself to talk to him. “Hi, Cherry, I’m all done with my work now!” You unclipped the door of the cage and reached out your hand.

“I thought you weren’t coming back!” the bitty answered, trembling as he climbed onto your palm. You’d told him approximately seven times that you’d be back in a few hours, and he had plenty of toys and bitty-sized books to amuse him in your absence, so you were unconvinced.

“Well, I’m back now,” you said, walking Cherry over to your kitchen counter and placing him on one of many beanbags you kept around the house for this purpose. You’d learned the hard way that the bitty was clumsy as well, and would fall and hurt himself give the slightest opportunity. The Internet had suggested you allow him to sit on your shoulder, but he yanked at your hair so hard it made your scalp ache, so you’d compromised on the cushions. “I’m making dinner now.” 

“Oh, w-what are we having, Momma?” the bitty asked, snuggling into the beanbag with a sigh.

“Probably pasta today,” you hummed, digging through the fridge and taking out the ingredients for a simple garlic butter pasta with chicken. You didn’t see Cherry’s mouth turn downward, but you could imagine he was pouting because it wasn’t chicken nuggets again. The bitty ate like a particularly picky child, but you weren’t about to restrict your diet because he had opinions about the teeny, tiny portion he was served. You refused to acknowledge his behavior, and made dinner without any further conversation.

When the meal was done, you set up Cherry’s napkin on the coffee table, placing his small plate and miniature silverware on the napkin along with a tiny cup of juice. Next, the bitty himself was placed onto the napkin. Then, you had to use the small fork to twirl his pasta for him and feed it to him by hand, because if you didn’t, you’d have a mess the size of Toledo to contend with. You especially hated this part of bitty ownership, because Cherry would just… _sit there_ , arms limp, eyes wide open and adoring, mouth hanging open for the next bite of food. Finally, the unpleasant task done, you could get your own plate and sit down on the couch to watch some TV and relax. 

Of course, your TV choices were extremely limited—nothing with any violence, nothing with too much shouting, no nature shows (because big animals were scary), nothing with “mean people.” Cooking shows were generally okay, but if the chef used alcohol in his cooking, you had to skip it, because the accompanying burst of fire scared Cherry so bad he’d probably wet himself, which made more work for you. You selected an episode of The Great British Bake Off and decided you’d take your chances on the fire aspect this time, because if you had to sit through another Barbie movie, you might actually snap.

Lucky for you, dinner was fairly uneventful after that. You got up to put your plate away, and noted that you had about an hour before you needed to go to bed. This meant you could relax a little longer, and you pulled your favorite blanket over yourself on the couch. Cherry flapped his arms at you from the coffee table, wanting to get closer to you, and you grit your teeth as you placed him on the plush arm of the sofa with a tiny blanket just for him. This was about as far away as he could handle being when he insisted on “cuddle time,” and you took advantage of that fact as much as possible. You didn’t really like holding or touching Cherry too much, because inevitably, when he got too comfortable, he’d begin humping whatever body part of yours was nearest to him. You’d gently asked him to stop doing this, multiple times, but his responses were always something along the lines of, “But it feels so good, Momma! I love you!” You’d long since banned him from sleeping in the bed with you, telling him that you were worried about squashing him at night, an explanation he seemed to accept. Really, you were sick of losing good pairs of pajamas to your bitty’s relentless sexual assaults.

You couldn’t even lock the bathroom door without first putting Cherry in his cage, you mused, recalling the first time you’d tried to take a bath after adopting him. You hadn’t even purchased a cage yet, and the bitty had stood outside the bathroom door and wailed the entire time, scratching at the paint and generally making a nuisance of himself. When you’d opened the door to let him in, presuming he was like a cat you’d once had who wanted to sleep on the bath mat in the warm air, he’d again whined until you placed him on the ledge of the tub, and when you’d tried to close your eyes and relax now that he was silent, he’d leaped from the ledge to settle himself on your bare chest. Your ensuing panic had nearly drowned the bitty, and you wouldn’t have been too angry if that had been the result. That had been the first—and last—time you’d tried to share bath time with Cherry, and you were even cautious about using the actual toilet for too long, since he had a tendency to panic and you already weren’t getting your security deposit back for the damage to the door.

You closed your eyes and tuned out both the television and Cherry’s huffing breaths at your left side, letting your head loll back as you imagined a quiet house, maybe with a cat or two. You could train a cat with gentle methods, count on them to sleep away most of the day, and feed them their own specific food. You wondered, not for the first time, why you hadn’t gotten a cat to begin with. As you slipped away into sleep, you thought of fluffy long tails and prickly feline whiskers.

\---

 Cherry, on the other hand, was still wide awake, having watched you fall asleep intently. He hopped down from the arm of the sofa to the cushion, and from the cushion to the floor, determined to do something nice for you. You’d seemed so frustrated lately, and he wanted to help! Maybe if he showed you how much he cared about you, you would perk up? Maybe you might let him snuggle on your chest, right next to your heart, and not get so upset when his ecto-pussy appeared this time. Cherry couldn’t help it—he just loved you so much, and wanted to be with you always!

He wandered around the house, wondering what he could do to make you happy. Ah, the door to your office was open! You’d told him before not to go in there by himself, but you’d left the door ajar this time, so it must be okay for him to go inside! You spent a lot of time there each day, after all, so maybe that’s where he’d find some way to make you pleased with him?

Cherry nodded determinedly, and walked inside.

\---

Your cell phone alarm went off bright and early the next morning, and you jolted awake from your position on the couch. You tried to regulate your breathing as you recognized that you still had plenty of time to get to your meeting—it wasn’t until later in the afternoon. As you rose from your seat, rolling the crick out of your neck, you came to an unpleasant realization… you couldn’t see Cherry anywhere, and you hadn’t put him in his cage before falling asleep.

 _Shit, where the hell could he have gone?_ You thought, shaking out the blanket that had covered you and noticing Cherry’s own small blanket abandoned on the sofa’s arm. You wouldn’t have been surprised if you’d woken to him trying to rub off on your hand again, but you were seriously concerned that you couldn’t see him at all. “Cherry!” you called, trying to keep any sign of worry out of your voice to avoid another crying fit. “Cherry, where are you?”

If you strained to hear, you thought you could make out a faint “Momma!” from down the hall. Fuck, you’d left your office door open. You crossed your fingers as you walked toward the sound of the bitty’s voice, and took a deep breath as you pushed the door all the way open.

“G’morning, Momma!” Cherry sang out, waving his arms and asking to be picked up. You barely heard him, however, focused as you were on the horror that rested on the carpet.

  
“Cherry… what do you have there?” you asked, channeling every ounce of focus you had into keeping your breathing even.

 “Well, M-momma, I noticed you’ve b-been real grumpy lately, s-so I… I made this coloring book pretty for you!” he exclaimed, riffling through the pages of—your meeting exhibit book. He’d somehow gotten ahold of your meeting exhibit book, and from what you could see, every page was obscured with marker strokes, with glitter glue, with stick-figure doodles labeled “Cherry (hearts) Momma!” The graphs were illegible, and most of the text was unclear. It wasn’t usable, not like this, and rush printing another one in time for you to make the meeting would cost you an arm and a leg.

 _Okay, deep breaths_ , you thought, and pulled your phone out of the pocket of your yoga pants, submitting the print job to the local shop online with expedited service. You winced as you hit “submit,” knowing it would be peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner for a few days to make up for the expense, but it couldn’t be helped. The most important issue taken care of, you took yet another calming breath and finally ordered your thinking enough to speak. “Cherry… that wasn’t a coloring book,” you said quietly, but in a more serious tone than you’d used with him in a long while. “That was a document for my job, and I can’t use it now, so I had to pay for another one. It was very expensive.” You paused there, trying to figure out what to say next.

Cherry was all too happy to fill in the silence. “I… I d-didn’t know!” he exclaimed, already working up some tears. “I-I… I wanted t-to show you how m-m-m-much I l-love you! I worked all night to make it p-pretty, like you! Y-you… you take such good care of me, I kn-know I’m hard to deal with, b-but… you help me so much with m-my heats, and with feeding me, a-and…” There went the waterworks, as the first tears slid down the bitty’s cheeks, contributing to the red stains that seemed permanent.

You tried to stay calm. You really did.

You failed. 

“Okay, that’s it,” you said quietly, almost under your breath. “I can’t do this anymore.”

“M-momma?” Cherry asked, looking up from where his tears had started to dye the carpet pink.

 “I said I CANNOT do this anymore!” you snapped, actually shouting at the bitty for the first time. “I do all that stuff because I HAVE TO, you idiot! I don’t even LIKE you.” 

Cherry seemed to be frozen with shock, tears even drying up temporarily. 

You, on the other hand, were only getting started. This flood had been dammed for months, and now the accumulated cracks in your control had made the whole dam give way. “You’re literally the worst decision I EVER made! I hate being home because you’re here, but I can’t leave for too long because you freak the fuck out!” 

The bitty still didn’t seem to be processing what you were saying, but instead had fallen down to sit on his backside and look up at you blankly.

“You irritate the living hell out of me! You wreck your clothes because you’re constantly pissing yourself for no good reason, you ruin MY shit because you hump literally everything, you cry when I use the blender, you cry when I wear high heels, you cry because we’re out of French fries!” You were really getting into your rant now, hands gesturing wildly and voice getting especially loud at points of emphasis. Somewhere in the back of your mind you knew it wouldn’t do any good, but letting loose all of your anger felt… amazing. “I have put up with your useless ass for almost a YEAR, and I have HAD IT. I did my goddamn best for you and you NEVER GOT BETTER!”

Some of what you’d said must have gotten through Cherry’s thick skull, because the crying had restarted in earnest. You would have said you’d never seen him cry this hard before, but you probably had, just considering the sheer number of freak-outs he’d had since you got him.

You weren’t done, though. “I am DONE being ordered around by a lab-grown fucking novelty pet that cost me fifty bucks! I have SHOES that cost more than you, and I don’t let them run my life! You aren’t even on the same level as an animal—at least a dog or a cat can grow and change, but you’re always going to be the same shitty pile of bones! I didn’t bring you back to the shelter because I thought no, I’m not that person, but I don’t CARE anymore.” 

Cherry was still sobbing, but now he looked like he was actually listening to you. His bones were rattling together, a sound you’d grown to hate intensely over the time you’d had him. It seemed like he was trying to speak, but couldn’t form the words. That was fine. You had plenty.

“I don’t care what happens to you if I take you to the animal shelter. I don’t care if the other bitties are mean to you, I don’t even care if they put you to sleep! I HATE YOU and I need you OUT!” Now you were done, and you tried to catch your breath. A twinge of guilt nagged at you, but you shrugged it off and approached Cherry. You’d have to catch him to bring him to the animal shelter, and it would be better to do it while he wasn’t expecting it. 

As your hand curled around him, Cherry began speaking. “I’m s-s-sorry,” he blubbered, “I-I didn’t mean t-t-to ruin your p-papers… I c-can fix it… I’ll be a g-good bitty, I p-p-promise…” was all he managed to get out before his words became incoherent around the crying. You could imagine how confused he was, as he’d always seemed to think you loved him—that was what you’d wanted him to think, after all, even though you’d never expressed that you loved him back. You’d never even raised your voice with him before, in order to avoid this exact type of fit. You picked Cherry up and stifled your urge to squeeze him too hard—you were still better than the kind of person who would purposely injure their pet. Ugh, he was soaked; he must have pissed himself yet again while you’d been on your tirade. It wouldn’t be your problem anymore, you mused, and deposited the dirty bitty back in his cage.

You rinsed off your hand and dialed the number for the local animal shelter, after a quick Google. A friendly female voice answered, and you tried to come up with the best possible spin on this. “Hi, I have a bitty—a Bittybones, that is—here, and I really can’t take care of him anymore… is there some way you would be able to take him in?”

The woman on the other end of the line laughed, then stopped. “Wait, you’re serious,” she said.

“Yes, he’s a Runt type, if that matters,” you answered.

 “Oh, honey, we don’t take those skeleton things here,” she responded, humor in her voice. “They’re not real animals, it's debatable whether they're even alive, and they’re mass-produced in a factory. It would be like bringing in a robot dog!”

 “Oh,” you said, processing that information. “Um, in that case… what should I do with him?”

“Well, you can call Bitty Buddies for a refund, if you’re still in the warranty period!” she said, shuffling papers on the other end of the line.

“I don’t think that will work,” you said. “I got him secondhand at one of those adoption centers.”

  
“Maybe call them?” the animal shelter receptionist suggested.

You hung up politely and did a quick internet search for the adoption center where you’d gotten Cherry. They had limited hours, but appeared to be open, so you called the number listed. “Hello, I have a Runt bitty here that I got from your shop, and—” 

The person on the other end of the line cut you off. “Look, we’re going out of business. Bitties aren’t cool anymore, means we don’t make any money, means we have to shut the doors. You can do whatever you want with him—they’re basically toys, no one cares what happens to them,” the man said gruffly.

“Oh,” you said, for the second time. “So… there’s nowhere I can bring him to find a new home, or something?”

“Not unless you know any saints,” he replied. “All the shops within five hundred miles of here are shut down. Just stick it in the freezer or something,” he finished.

 “The freezer?” you asked, slightly confused.

“Yeah, easiest way to kill it,” he said. “Look, just crush up a Benadryl for it, wait for it to go to sleep, and then put it in there. It won’t even wake up.” The man hung up without waiting for your response.

 So no animal shelters would take a bitty, and even the shop that had originally made you sign a contract to return Cherry if you didn’t want him later was no longer selling the skeleton creatures. Your choices, you supposed, were to keep Cherry, hating every second you had to see his face or hear his stuttering voice… or… 

Before you could think about it too hard, you’d gone to the medicine cabinet and crushed two of the pink allergy pills into powder. That dose made even you sleepy, so it should work just fine on a palm-sized pile of bones. You walked over to Cherry’s cage with the powder wrapped in a small piece of paper, one that could be folded hot-dog-style to pour the medicine down a small throat.

Cherry looked at you with glistening eyes and began stuttering as soon as he noticed your approach. “M-momma, please don’t send me away! I… I know I’m a bad bitty, but I can be g-good! I l-love you…”

You steeled yourself again, repeating internally that he was basically a toy, and that this was your only option besides checking yourself into a loony bin. “Sure, Cherry, you can stay.” 

“R-really?” the bitty asked.

“Yes, but you have to do two things for me first,” you said, “take off your clothes and open your mouth wide.”

Cherry rushed to comply, probably with his mind in the gutter, as you saw red magic dancing along his bare bones. He knelt submissively and dropped his jaw. You dumped the powder you’d prepared down his throat, and watched as he coughed and sputtered trying to swallow the dry substance. It wouldn’t matter soon. 

You turned your back after that, counting down five minutes on your cell phone timer and ignoring Cherry’s attempts at talking to you, which grew fainter and fainter. When you turned back around, the bitty was asleep on the floor of his cage. You were glad you’d had him take off his clothes, soiled as they were, because it meant this would all be over faster.

As quickly as you could manage, you scooped up the naked bitty and stuffed him into a plastic freezer bag. That would keep the dust from wrecking all of your frozen food, at least, you thought as you placed the bag into the very back of the freezer, on top of all the steamable veggies you’d rarely gotten to eat (because Cherry didn’t like green things). You slammed the freezer door shut harder than you probably needed to, and went to your room to get ready for work.

\---

 Cherry dreamed.

He dreamed that it was winter, and snow was falling from the sky, and he’d begged Momma to go and see it with him. He dreamed that she smiled, and cuddled him to her cheek, and called his curiosity precious. He dreamed that she’d dressed him in cozy warm clothes, and then cradled him in one palm while she walked around the snowy front yard. 

He dreamed that your smile was genuine, and your eyes were glad, and your hands loving.

 Cherry dreamed of cold, and gently drifted off into deep, snowy darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading, and I hope you'll leave a comment if you have any questions, ideas, or anything else to say!


End file.
